By AMANDA VAN MULLIGEN
Many aspects of living outside your birth country can be unsettling and difficult to adjust to. Forging new relationships in a foreign language is certainly top of my list.
Using a second language, it’s hard to convey a real sense of yourself to those around you. Sarah Turnbull, author of a book about expat life in Paris, relays her experience of attending a dinner party. She spoke little French and other guests wrongly perceived her as quiet and shy.
“I’d said very little all night. When I did speak, it was to issue childlike statements or ask simple questions which made me cringe at my own dumbness.”
I can relate, even though I am by nature a quiet person. An introvert. It’s why I choose to write for a living instead of pursuing a career in public speaking. I’m not the most verbal person with strangers in English, but for a decade now I’ve faced the dilemma of communicating primarily in Dutch.
I speak it well enough to get by in daily life, understand the education system my son is entering, follow the country’s news and political events, watch Dutch television programmes and chat to the neighbours.
Forbidden entry, in Dutch
However, when it comes to deep, meaningful conversations about something other than the weather or the state of the local park, a foreign language is one of the biggest barriers to sharing my personal identity.
I find myself lacking the vocabulary to express the real me.
I scrape the top of the emotion and describe a basic feeling, but there is no depth to my foreign words. A perplexed look and a shallow comment is really not representative of who I am.
I wonder if my Dutch family and friends will ever know the me who does have an opinion on important matters, who does have deep feelings on a range of topics.
How do you overcome the obstacle of language and let the real you shine through?
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Amanda van Mulligen is a British-born writer, blogger and mother experiencing life in the Netherlands.
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WELCOME BACK. Identity adventurers like you make this global niche what it is -- so, thanks!
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This blog post has been making it’s way around and fits beautifully with Amanda’s message. A very interesting take. It’s called Expat’s Opinions On Working In English:
http://callearning.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/expats-opinions-on-working-in-english/
This topic is one that has come up many times in discussions between my Turkish teacher and I. For this reason I was really attracted to the idea of coming full-circle with it and attempting to translate Amanda’s piece. My apologies in advance to the language sensibilities of fluent Turkish speakers, but I wanted to share the resulting effort here. As a side note, I actually find almost every point raised on expat+HAREM fruit for discussion in my lessons, and they always force me to try harder to do more than “scrape the top of the emotion and describe a basic feeling”. My thanks to my wonderful teacher, Özlem, for helping me inch closer to my goal.
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“Ben” nasıl deniyor?
AMANDA VAN MULLIGEN
Yurt dışında yaşamanın pek çok boyutu, hayatınıza belirsizlik getirebilir ve buna alışmak zor olabilir. Benim için en zor şey şudur: yabancı dil üzerinden yeni ilişkilerin kurulması.
İkinci dili kullanarak etrafındaki kişilere kendi gerçeğinizi anlatmanız çok zor. Paris’te yaşayan yabancıların hayatının anlatıldığı bir kitabin yazarı olan Sarah Turnbull, bir akşam yemeği partisinde yaşanmış olayları anlattı. Herkes, Sarah pek az Fransızca bildiği için yanlış bir şekilde onun çok sessiz ve çekingen biri olduğunu sanmış.
“Gece boyunca çok az konuştum. Bir şey dediğim zaman o kadar çocuk gibi basit bir şey söylüyor yada kolay bir soru soruyordum ki, cahilliğimden dolayı çok utanıyordum.”
Yapım itibariyle çekingen bir insan olmama rağmen çok iyi anlayabiliyorum. Çok içedönük bir insanım. Spiker olmayarak, yazar olarak çalışmayı seçmemin sebebi budur. Tanımadığım kişilerle karşılaştığımda İngilizce üzerinden bile çok konuşkan olmamama rağmen son on senedir ikilemim şudur: birincil iletişim dilim Hollandaca oldu.
Günlük Hollandacayı oldukça iyi konuşabilirim: normal şeyler yapabilirim, oğlumun yeni gireceği eğitim sistemini anlayabilirim, ülkenin gündemine ayak uydurabilirim, Hollanda televizyonlarındaki programları izleyebilirim ve komşularımla sohbet edebilirim.
Fakat hava veya parkın durumu gibi bir konudan bahsetmiyorsak, derin ve çok anlamlı bir konuşma yaparken, kendi iç kimliğimi paylaşmamdaki en büyük engellerden biri yabancı dil konuşmamdır.
Gerçek “beni” anlatmak için yeterince kelime bilgim yok.
Duygularımın, en yüzeysel parçasına ulaşarak çok basit bir şekilde tanımlıyorum, fakat yabancı kelimelerimin derinliği yoktur. Şaşkın bakışlarım ve sığ laflarım benim gerçeğimi yansıtmıyor.
Hollandalı ailem ve arkadaşlarım, önemli olaylarda görüşleri ve çeşitli konularda derin duyguları olan benimle tanışacak mı acaba?
Dil engelini nasıl yenerek kendi gerçeğinizi gösteriyorsunuz?
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Hollanda’da hayatını geçiren Amanda van Mulligen, İngiliz kökenli bir yazar, blogcu ve annedir.
Very interesting piece here: http://www.worldhum.com/features/speakers-corner/inspiration-travel-writing-and-lesprit-frondeur-20100216/
Despite being largely about writing, the author touches upon many of the points raised in Amanda’s post and our comments. The emphasis placed on the importance of passion I found particularly striking.
Read.
Wonderful article, Helen, and written with great passion. Thanks for posting the link. Makes me realize that I can’t hope to write well about the Kurds until I speak their language. I’ve got work to do!
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Isn’t it just? Good luck in your pursuit of Kurdish (I can only begin to imagine how difficult that must be to learn with little hope of a formal framework!).
Thanks! That’s true, but I do have the advantage of a native-speaking husband and his enormous family, so it’s a matter of finding someone with the patience to tutor me…THAT part I’ll need much luck with.
Wow, so many of us in the same boat!
I’ve just had the luxury of reading through everyone’s comments and it’s strange how there can be a persona for each language – or perhaps each culture we find ourselves in (we just connect it to language?)
I grew up in an environment where Turkish was quite familiar, even though I didn’t speak it until I actually moved to Turkey. But, immediately my whole nature changed. I became an introvert, seeming painfully shy. As they say in Turkey ’she has a mouth but no tongue!’ Yet, back home in England I grew up as the liveliest, most talkative girl in school – often chief mischief-maker. I practically talked my way into a great place at a great university – the interviewing board told me one of my grades wasn’t really up to scratch but that I had the gift of the gab (literally, their words!) so I would be a great asset to the school. I’m still a little like that when I go home – but here, even when I’m lucky enough to find myself in an English-speaking environment I’m simply wordless. Only my husband and children can see the real me.
What an overwhelming response to this post and I am so glad it sparks recognition in so many. There is a lovely saying in Dutch “zit lekker in je vel” which means to literally sit comfortably in your skin and this can be so hard when you take on two personas as many of you have described because of living abroad and speaking(at least) two languages. I think the main thing is to definitely feel comfortable with the image that you portray to those you meet, and the longer and deeper the relationship you build, the easier it becomes to convey the ‘real’ you, not just through language but with other tools too (all mentioned in this comment thread).
It is also a really valid and interesting point to remember that whilst you are babbling away in your mother tongue it is likely that the person you are talking to in your host country is then using a second language – and feel the way you do when using a non-native language. Remembering that first impressions in such cases can be very wrong is a great motto to live by I think!
[...] fellow writer Amanda van Mulligen’s post at expat+HAREM hits home. She questions how self-expression can pierce a language barrier, especially if you’re shy. That would be me. Shy to speak like a [...]
Love this discussion… Thank you for bringing up this subject, Amanda. It reminds me of my first year after moving to Turkey, pregnant, on a tour bus to Cappadocia. A microphone is set up for everyone to introduce themselves. This intimidates me in English as an introvert, to have to perform in front of others, and with my choppy Turkish I was terrified. In standing up and saying, I’m Rose. I live in Turkey. I’m pregnant, I attracted a round of applause. For just a few simple phrases, I felt my confidence triple. Since then, my Turkish (and persona in Turkish) is more direct and less nervous. Part of the reason is I have to be – many words are still absent from my vocabulary in Turkey. And in what other circumstance could so few words create applause? I think it has more to do with the fact that I tried, than what I said.
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Definitely a great post and something so many expats experience. I had to laugh at the “cringe at my own dumbness” quote because I find myself constantly doing that here in Italy. I’m also not as funny or witty as I (think) I was in English but I’m convinced that, too, will come with time!
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What a great post Amanda. Living in Croatia for 9months now and having attended Croatian lessons for 3 months, I still can’t get past the “Ja sam Elisa. Ja sam iz Mexica” (i’m Elisa, I’m from Mexico) I can’t express to my mother-in-law how grateful I feel when she spends hours in the kitchen cooking for sunday’s lunch. I’m a smiler so I do that alot! and try and speak with my hands..and my hubby can translate but it’s not the same..
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I have been there too Amanda, thanks for a great post!
I think Anastasia brought up a fantastic point that passion is something that will push us to that next stage in trying to communicate. I’ve found during the language learning process that when I really really want to convey an idea and I don’t have the vocabulary, I’ll find another way to say it using words I do know combined with gestures. At first it’s challenging because my brain is fixated on the words I don’t know, and need. But eventually this type of “brain exercise” definitely got easier. And when I was passionate about saying something, it meant I was determined to find a way to say it. So in those cases I did feel like I could express that part of my personality even though my vocabulary was very lacking.
And while I still have problems talking about different types of flowers or the intricacies of auto parts in Italian, I now also have the opposite problem: there are some Italian words which have very unsatisfying English equivalents! (which I wrote about here)
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Lovely website, Madeline – makes me want to practice my Italian! I find what you say to be true about the limits of speaking in only one language – Turkish and Spanish both have words that are far more expressive than English can be. Or I find myself frequently saying something like “inshallah” (or the Spanish equivalent “ojala”) when I’d never say “God willing” in English.
As for gestures, because the Turks (and the Italians for that matter) are so expressive with their body language, I think that really helps me be more demonstrative if the word escapes me. And Turkish has some great sounds to express exasperation, like my favorite: “oufff YAAAHH” said with a pronounced sigh – that requires no translation at all!
Beautifully written Amanda. Though I do speak Turkish, I find myself unable to express the real me. That’s not because I can’t find the words. It’s because the words I would chose are not proper for a Turkish girl to use. I am two different people for two different audiences. And how I love one more than the other.
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Wow Elmira, what a restriction. You know the words. It’s your native tongue. And yet, because people before you have not put those words together the way you would like to — you cannot.
This is why I went from an expat to being an expat coach. I understand the importance of being heard, to feel that you matter, that what you say is understood and allowed to be without judgement, that its safe in that environment to “talk” as you would as yourself free of national identity, family issues, language difficulties, to be listened to with positive regard and unjudged.
Hence, also why I suggest that where possible expats are coached in their native language to allow them to fully express themselves. Sometimes for expats in a business context being coached in their second/ business language allows them to “model” themselves more appropriately to fit into their business culture/ context, but for true expat empathy coaching in own language I believe enables the expat the full benefit of coaching at that time.
I absolutely know this feeling. When I was first living in Spain and making my theoretical knowledge of the language turn into practical use I went through exactly what you are going through. I always loved the Spanish language so it was just a matter of time before I was able to really be me, make jokes and discuss life’s complexities using Spanish as the vehicle.
Here in Prague I speak only the most basic of Czech, and I actually have sort of the opposite feeling as you: Some of my Czech friends with very basic English can get frustrated as we try to share ourselves in English. We always find a way around it (I think becoming an expat can make one a bit psychic in the process), but I know that there’s more they want to tell me and they don’t have the English words.
Fantastic post, Amanda!
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Hi Amanda, Reading your post New Year’s Eve 1993 comes to mind. Within a month my Texan husband and I would be relocating to the U.S. and my mother had come to celebrate “Oud & Nieuw” with us in Amsterdam. After eighteen months of trying to speak just Dutch with her and coming off as “an imbecile” (his words) Gary had had it. So far all he had exchanged with Nita were pleasantries. This time, instead of just offering a cup of tea and something to eat, he treated her to his thoughts on national and international politics and he expressed his appreciation of living in a country the size of a city in his own home state. In short telling her all kinds of things he must have been wanting to say for a long time. Finally he exclaimed plus immediately proved his love of “oliebollen”, the traditional Dutch end-of-the-year treats, by taking a bite out of one.
My mother looked at me and said: “My, Judith, I never knew Gary was so well informed and opinionated.”
I have been living in the Netherlands for a little over a year now and am several months into my Dutch-as-a-second-language journey. I, too, find this a very relevant and thought provoking question.
One thing I have noticed is that as my Dutch vocabulary grows, I find myself inserting Dutch words when trying to convey something because they are more adequate than English ones. Sometimes I find it difficult to convey the same meaning when I speak to family and friends in the US because I can’t rely on the Dutch vocabulary as it will fall on deaf ears.
Likewise, the opposite happens. Some things I find very difficult to express in Dutch simply because it is done differently. For instance, it’s very typical for an American to say they “love” a certain type of food or activity. Not many other languages use such a strong word to describe how they feel about a thing. Instead, you like it or think it’s nice or it pleases you. None of these options mean quite the same thing as far as I’m concerned.
This leads me to wonder if it’s not that we CAN’T express our “real” selves in the new language, but that we can’t express our “real” selves in the same way we’re USED to. I also agree that it’s a confidence issue. The idea is to express yourself and not worry so much about grammar and vocabulary.
I do think though that it can be done and it has been done, but you really have to work hard to get there. Nothing comes easily
Tiffany, yes! Totally! Even though I’ve not lived in Spain for many years, I find myself every so often slipping back into my Spanish especially if I’m feeling upset or moved by something. I’ve always thought of Spanish as a very passionate language, and I speak a Southern Sevillana/Flamenca dialect which takes it even further. When I see something that amazes or angers me, an explosive “Hostia!” or “Ole” emerges from my mouth, totally unconsciously. There is no equivalent in English for me, and so that said I suppose I can’t express the totality of me all in English. It’s an interesting thing to realise about oneself, especially considering English is my first and main language.
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Thank you Amanda. As much as I can relate to your experience, I often tell people that I found myself in Turkey. Once I learned some Turkish and was able to communicate coherently, I learned words that we don’t have in English. With those Turkish words I’ve been able to identify things in myself that I felt were there, but was unable to express. That’s a simplification, but what I feel is that I became more of myself in Turkey because my vocabulary for how I am able to define myself became richer. Of course I’m still not as good as a native Turkish speaker in expressing this, but I hope (and suspect) as Maureen explains, that the people around me get a sense of who I am not just from my words, but by my actions. I actually think I’m more outgoing and expressive (though not better spoken) in Turkish than I am in English.
I find myself at exactly this point in my life. After 20 years of ‘learning’ German, sporadic visits and longer stays, I am now here… I live here.. but I feel like nobody here really knows who I am. I have the right level of language skills to do anything, but I miss those conversations over wine… where I didn’t have to think about what I was saying. Esoteric subjects are all but dead to me in German (besides, the Germans I know don’t seem interested anyway). Excellent post, hit the nail on the head.
Interesting post and comments. It is frustrating to not have the same facility in other languages as in your mother tongue. I was brought up bi-lingual English/Dutch , followed by a language degree in 2 more and then topped that up with additional languages as required
I wish I had the same fluency in all – but I always remind myself that communication is the most important thing and better to at least attempt as much as you can. Of course I can understand that this issue is so much more acute in an adopted country. I think time and continuous learning is the only answer 
Great question Amanda. And one I’ve struggled with. It took me a year to get my ear in, a year to find my tongue, six years and counting of continuously learning and refining. I’ll never stop learning Turkish (or English come to think of it.)
Maureen I wonder how much the non-verbal aspect is skewed by cultural differences? I remember sitting stiffly in a setting where I didn’t understand a word, as if my body language was also stilted. As I learned the culture more (and realised it wasn’t an argument, merely a discussion of where to go for tea!) I relaxed and was more open to non-verbal communication. Learning the body language, that raised eyebrows are a negative reply, that a wave of the hand is dismissive, also took time.
My ‘persona’ in Turkish was a caricature initially, limited by my vocabulary and grammar problems. As the years go by my Turkish ‘persona’ is becoming closer to ‘me’ but I know it will never overlap exactly. That eternal gap may well be due to the differences between the two languages though
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Amanda, great post and a very good question – thank you. I’ve also been frustrated not being able to truly speak my mind in intelligent Turkish and embarrassed that a three-year-old child could speak more eloquently. Thankfully I find the Turks are generally tolerant of my attempts and even to be congratulatory that a foreigner can be understood in Turkish at all. Much like Sarah Turnbull’s experience with the woman at the cafe commenting that “seven years is a very short time”, my American cultural expectations of myself to master a new language immediately put too much pressure on enjoying the process of learning.
But Anastasia brings up a very intriguing connection that I would not have made otherwise, something that has indeed helped me, now that I think about it: passion. The desire to express myself despite horrible grammar and a limited vocabulary (but lots of body language!)outweighs the embarrassment of making mistakes and seeing everyone cringe.
And strangely, since moving to Turkey, my fluency in Spanish has greatly increased because of my passion for answering questions about the country for the many Latino travelers I meet in our Selcuk businesses. Unfortunately, I now have the tendency to mix Turkish and Spanish in the same sentence, depending on which comes to mind first!
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How do you overcome the obstacle of language and let the real you shine through? GREAT question, Amanda… and compliments for your eloquent phrasing of this dilemma I’ve experienced myself: “I scrape the top of the emotion and describe a basic feeling, but there is no depth to my foreign words.”
Although I’m pretty fluent in Italian, I STILL experience the feeling of not being able to fully express the real me sometimes in that language. Fortunately my husband speaks English, so when I’m really digging deep and slipping into my mother tongue he ‘gets’ me. With others, though, I can’t revert to English when the Karen-ness of Karen isn’t coming through in Italian.
So what do I do to let the real me shine through when I can’t find the right words? I use other ways of communicating… tone of voice, body language and facial expressions. These can help transcend the language barrier.
But even if one day I’m thoroughly fluent in Italian and never find myself grasping for the right word, my mother tongue will always be the most natural channel for the real me.
My point, Amanda, Brian, is that the “real you” is getting across, no question. There are still a lot of reasons for feeling discomforted by interactions that take place outside your own native language. But ask yourself if your fear of coming across as stupid or simple or not having complex opinions and feelings isn’t more an expression of your own insecurities. You are communicating in other ways, are probably being cut a lot more slack on your spoken language proficiency by your local friends and family than you think, and are being much harder on yourselves than they are likely to be. What you may get less of a pass on, or need more patience to endure, may be individual prejudices against your own native culture, which may include the perception that native English speakers just don’t bother. Can’t do anything about that one – it’s their loss.
Depending on which study one looks at, between 60 and 90 percent of all communication is non-verbal. In this context, commanding the the spoken language within an expat setting is but one factor in the rendering of personality and self. Since most (humans) are unaware of the sheer extent to which they shed information in the form of body language, dress, spatial behavior and such, these are less easily manipulated than a grammatically-mastered spoken language. Non-verbal communication is often studied (sound turned off) in applied studies to determine the extent to which people are meaning what they say, saying what they mean. The near-universal conclusion is that spoken language tends to obscure rather than reveal.
Oooh, yes Maureen. First thing my husband-to-be told me about meeting his mother (who does speak English, but not much) was that it wasn’t going to be about what I said, it would be about what I did. Actions. Louder than words. Not just an aphorism.
Thanks for this Amanda. As a linguistically-challenged person (rather than an introvert) I empathize with this situation. I would say plenty of things if only I could, yet devoting my energies to language-learning has never resulted in any facility — and I’ve studied eight languages! Expressing the real me in another tongue? Doubtful.
I came across this article today which intersects the shyness issue of your post and reframes it in the changing world of relationships. Shy people (or those otherwise muted by language difficulties, I would add) are at a disadvantage in making broad and deep relationships. The author suggests PASSION is the answer. When we connect with people around our passions, not only are we more outgoing, but the conventional boundaries between us fall away.
In other words, to express the real you, do what you love.
can not reiterate enough this website seems to nail home everything I have gone through ,this feeling of “I find myself lacking the vocabulary to express the real me” it is like I am reading my own recent experiences everytime .wonderfull reading and I may be just a bloke or a man depends how you want take the phrase but I am forever finding myself reading these short blogs and then realizing I am not alone. thank you amanda for the article … cok sagol …brian
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Good evening Brian. The concept of the expat+HAREM came from a feminine experience yes — but it also stands for cultural peers tied together in the virtual realm, and this neohub expands on that initial community. expat+HAREM is for everyone who can relate!
There is reciprocity in this too: at some point *someone* has to converse in a language other than their mother tongue. Even people with high proficiency in the language in question may still feel less comfortable (or retain some form of reserve) than they would in their own tongue. (The relatively formal English I hear from a lot of Turks comes to mind: it is drained of a lot of the colour and feel of the daily language, while in all other respects being near-perfect.) This is something one should bear in mind when feeling the frustration of the limited communication bandwidth offered by an imperfect second language. Empathy is a big part of understanding; it’s worth making the extra effort just to show by your own attempts to be the non-native speaker that you share (in whatever measure) the same frustrations and difficulties as your collocutor.
Feeling totally comfortable with the language of your adopted country doesn’t necessarily mean you *get* everything. English remains my second language, as it is for many people who live in America. Even although my husband likes to brag(!) that my English vocabulary is larger than his, there are times when I want to know what a certain idiom means to him (or somebody else) personally. Of course I can look up a saying, but that doesn’t bring to the foreground the feeling that comes along with having learned those words as a child.
And there’s more, I can remember my surprise when finding out that certain words used by English speakers in India had a different meaning than what I’d learned in school in the Netherlands, or had got used to in America.
Beside showing the empathy Helen mentions, I think it’s helpful to realize that each of us in general speaks a different, personal language. Asking questions about true meaning rather than imagining that you understand the other because you speak the same language can clarify and open doors.
This unfortunately is easier expressed in writing than in reality. Too often we take what the other says at face value. The first words we utter are those that make a lasting impression. Unless we and the other are willing to take the time to ask and/or open up.